THE MAN JOHN WILKES.• Tax most illuminating thing which Mr.
Bit:Ackley says of his " subject," John Wilkes, is that he was one of the greatest humorists of his time, for one cannot get in touch at all with Wilkes's true character unless one realizes that he was ever a jester. He was a cynical wit who had not, except possibly in his latter days, a scrap of British hypocrisy. From his teens up to threescore years and ton he was an unblushing rake who boasted that he could talk away his own ugly face in half-an-hour. He was a failure in Parlia- ment because he could make nothing but set speeches, and when delivering them failed entirely to convince any one of his sincerity. Always throughout life a gay spendthrift, he took up Parlia- ment as Member for Aylesbury because it was highly convenient to be immune from arrest for debt. He published the North Briton in order to attack Lord Bute, whom he loathed as a hungry Scot and as the patron of all the other hungry Scots whom the Union of Parliaments had brought to the South. When in the famous " No. 95 " ho libelled George III., and tho Govern- ment took the most inept of proceedings against him, he posed as an Apostle of Liberty because Liberty was a most effective and a most humorous card to play. Whether he wrote the obscene Essay on Womar himself, or was a collaborator with his friend Potter, matters little ; he accepted the responsibility of author. ship, and proudly claimed that the austere Great Commoner, the elder Pitt, had enjoyed his lewd jests more at the ninety- ninth reading than at the first. Ho was then Member for Aylesbury, and, being expelled from the House, skipped across the Channel and luxuriated at the expense of creditors for four riotous years. And as he was " wanted " for the undoubted libels of " No. 45 " and the Essay on Ironton, and did not turn up to be tried, he was outlawed by the King's Bench.
We pay him the compliment of supposing that he never regarded himself as a martyr to the cause of Liberty. He was much too clear-sighted and much too amusing. The pose of martyrdom was adopted because it went down with the mob, which disliked the " King's Friends " more heartily than Wilkes himself. He was a kurgeois with social atipirations, a wit of repute and much sought after by brother-wits. He was the last man to bother himself about the mob, except in so far as it could be useful to him, but once having taken up the role of demagogue no man knew better how to play it. When after four years of the Continent ho returned to London and surrendered to take his trial, ho became the moat powerful man in the country. His ragged supporters had few votes, but they could make themselves mightily unpleasant to those in authority. The Whigs took him up as a useful stick with which to beat the Court Party, and ho was triumphantly elected for the County of Middlesex though still an outlaw. The Commons, though warned by Burke and George Grenville that they would only make themselves ridiculous, expelled him by a majority of 82 votes. He wont back by proxy to Brentford, stood again with- out opposition, and was re-elected by acclamation. In person he was then in tho King's Bench Prison under sentence for the libels of " No. 45 " and the Essay on Ironton. His sentences of ten and twelve months were light ; a man who wrote and published such matter nowadays would probably suffer more severely. The Commons again refused to have him as a member on the ground that he was incapable of being elected. At the third contest he won easily against a Crown nominee, one Colonel Luttrell; but the Commons declared that, since Wilkes did not in the electoral sense exist, Luttrell wee the chosen of Middlesex, though lie received 290 votes only as against 1,143 cast for Wilkes. The Wilkite Riots in London occasioned by this election approached the dimensions of a rebellion, and blood was shod out of which Wilkes extracted the last drop of political colour.
After spending a pleasant holiday in the King's Bench Prison, surfeited with presents of thing. to eat and drink and the favours of pretty women, Wilkes turned to the City of London, which, Whig to the backbone, was an eager supporter of any one who would make things unpleasant for the Court. George III. wanted to turn himself into an absolute King, and the City was quite determined not to allow it. Wilkes, who had become a freeman of the Joiners' Company, got himself elected a Sheriff, and made an ex- ceedingly good one. He stirred up Lord Mayor Crosby to put the Speaker's messenger in prison when he sought to arrest one John Miller for printing an account of a Parliamentary debate. Wilkes's purpose, no doubt, was again to make the House of Commons ridiculous, and he certainly succeeded; incidentally he did much to secure the liberty of the Press. Four years after his successful term as Sheriff Wilkes became Lord Mayor of London—he was then at the height of his fame—and made the best Lord Mayor that the City
• We of Joh. Wilke.. By Borate Bleackley. Landoo: Jabs Lane. Ilea nog
has ever known. The method of selection does not tend to attract very able men into City politics, so that Wilkes, unquestionably very able indeed, was like a swan among geese. He ruled the City with conspicuous success, and during his term of office was re- elected Member for Middlesex for the fourth time. A General Election gave him his chance, and he returned to Parliament after eleven years of expulsion. He was then nearly fifty, and, though he tried hard to become a Parliamentary speaker, was a splendid failure. Ho could make fine speeches upon great occasions—as when he opposed the war against the American Colonies—but the Commons, always keen judges of character, would not believe in his sincerity about anything.
Wilkes was no democrat. He would talk of the voice of the people being the voice of God when it served his purpose to talk in this fashion, but he had no notion of paying to the people more than lip service. At heart he was an aristocrat. Mr. Bleackley, on the evidence of his speeches, claims him as a Parliamentary Reformer before his time, but we should be slow to accept any of Wilkes's ut terances as evidence of a real belief in Reform. A story which better illustrates the man is as follows. One afternoon he told the Speaker in private that he was entrusted with a petition from " a set of the greatest scoundrels on earth." Shortly afterwards he rose in his place. "Sir," he announced gravely, "I hold in my hand a petition from a most intelligent, independent, and en- lightened body of men." Wilkes was like the barrister who always tells any jurymen whom he wishes to win over to his side that they are conspicuous for their beauty and intelligence. Ho was a demagogue when he wanted to get anything out of the crowd, and an electioneer of eminence in an age before that queer art had been developed. His Middlesex elections when he was fighting the Crown were superbly organized, and no one living was his master in presenting a popular case to the best advantage.
Mr. Bleackley has given us a most interesting book. He has dug deeply into all records and papers which would throw light on Wilkes's career, and has sought to show us what the man was like and how he came to do shot he did. He has put before himself the task of pros ing that a man who wrought so much for Liberty was himself a great man and a lover of the cause for which ho fought. We allow that Wilkes had genius of a sort, but doubt whether he really cared two pins about the rights of constituencies, or the illegality of General Warrants, or the liberty of the Press. He fought for John Wilkes, and in fighting for him achieved results of wide Constitutional importance. He was a wit and bon vioeur, with every vice except gaining, a man of great tact in society and of polished manners. Even his enemy George III. admitted that he "had never seen so well-bred a Lord Mayor." In his youth he bribed himself into the representation of Aylesbury, but afterwards tried to pose as incorruptible. He was the centre of the Middlesex Riots, yet bore a gallant part as an Alderman in putting down the Gordon Riots. If we call Wilkes a brilliant opportunist we shall perhaps do no injustice to his memory. He played a notable part in Parlia- mentary history, though he was no Parliamentarian and no demo- crat. When notoriety suited his purpose he made the most of it ; when his fame sank with public forgetfulness he did not greatly worry. Wilkes was a laughing philosopher who achieved the merit of being able to laugh at himself.
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